The guitarist Pete Townshend thinks the world “underestimated”
In his time, The Who guitarist Pete Townshend has rubbed shoulders with some of the most influential musicians the world has ever known. Whether it be his bandmates, Jimi Hendrix or even Eric Clapton, the Londoner has been in direct contact with an extensive list of undoubted icons, meaning that his first-hand accounts of them are as valuable as they come, as the survivors of this period are dwindling.
Whilst Townshend has spoken extensively about his bandmates, the late Jimi Hendrix and many others, one person he also has excellent knowledge of is The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies. Famously, Davies is credited with popularising the distortion effect by slashing the speaker cone in his amplifier with a razor blade and using this gritty sound on the 1964 hit ‘You Really Got Me’. A significant point in rock’s story, the likes of Townshend and Hendrix, would cite it as an inspiration later on.
When speaking to Time in 1995, Pete Townshend discussed the brilliance of The Kinks. He said that their frontman and songwriter Ray Davies should one day be Poet Laureate before moving on to his brother Dave, who he called “very underestimated” as a guitarist.
The Who man said: “The Kinks were much more quintessentially English. I always think that Ray Davies should be one day, be Poet Laureate. You know, he invented a new kind of poetry. A new kind of language for Pop writing, which I think, influenced me from the very, very beginning. (It was) very strange that I should be so directly influenced because it was from sideways. We were moving foward together. But I was very influenced by him.”
Espousing his famous humility, Townshend continued: “I think that Dave Davies is also very underestimated. When we started, I used to feel that. Well, it’s obvious that Dave couldn’t have done the kind of innovation that I did. Because I was with Jim Marshall building the bloody amplifiers. Somehow The Kinks adopted some of that as well. They didn’t actually use the Marshall-size amps that we used. But they were loud, they were raucous. The guitar sound was similar, there was feedback there.”
Sitting down with Guitar World in 1997, Dave Davies reflected on the impact that Townshend and The Who had on his band in the early days. The guitarist explained that their fellow Londoners were a cut above their peers even in the early days, and it was clear that they were following a higher purpose, where they were “out to rewrite the rules”.
Davies said: “I obviously focused on it. Because we thought The Who’s first single was the first time we heard it! So when they brought stuff out after that, we were obviously interested in what they were doing.”
“It didn’t surprise me when they came out with Tommy. Because I’d met them briefly at gigs, and they were a bit more. I hate to say the word intelligent. But more focused than a lot of the other bands back then,” Davies explained. “Most of the bands The Kinks toured with were just in it for the fun. To make money and buy a nice car. But with The Who, you got the feeling that they were out to rewrite the rules. Which attracted me, because I was trying to do the same thing,” he explained.
